An Englishman's Home is his Castle...

(apologies for taking so long to actually get this post finished & published)

A few months ago, my friend Sarah announced that she and her husband, Ben, were moving to Derbyshire. After staying with Sarah's granny for a few weeks, they have now moved into their new house, so we thought we would visit them on our way to Grimsby. We took the campervan and booked into Elvaston Castle (not a real castle at all!)campsite nearby to stay for the night.

After visiting Sarah & Ben's new house, we all went over to Elvaston Castle Country Park. A pleasant walk in the woods was the perfect opportunity for Big J to cover his lovely clean trainers and the bottom half of his trousers in two types of poo and some of his own wee! What a charming boy!

We headed for Nottingham the following day, which was not enjoyable in the least. I love Nottingham and as the children have been following the Robin Hood series (yes, yes, I know it's not age appropriate!) I thought they would love to visit the castle. Yes, I am sure they would have preferred to visit the Robin Hood experience museum, but at thirty odd pounds for the family to get in, we decided the castle was more appealing. Didn't I realise they would be disappointed when they saw it and found out it was not a real castle at all, but more like a large stately home? Did I really expect them to get excited about an art gallery and some plates, bowls & cups? Well, yes, hindsight would have been handy (or possible just some forethought!).

A longer than anticipated drive finally got us to Seany's house - not a castle either, but the kids were happy to see Uncle Seanie, as were we, of course!

Despite the fact that we had (and still have) no money, we still managed to visit a windmill (Windy Miller was not in so we didn't get to see it turning, although I managed to keep Big J quiet for about 10 minutes by saying, "Quick, I just saw it move - keep watching!"); a zoo (of sorts) in Cleethorpes (no, not the Sunday Market!)although Seany said it was not quite like the San Diego Zoo or the one in St Louis and we also went for a long drive in the country in search of Alvingham Watermill which I remembered visiting as a year 3 pupil with my favourite teacher and thought Little Z might like to see as the one we had seen in Elvaston had not been working. We also managed to reach the Appleby's Ice Cream shop in Conisholme just in time.

Thanks Seany for another great break.